Bill Nelson on Social Security

Democratic Sr Senator (FL)

Opposes efforts to partially privatize

Nelson says he would oppose efforts to partially privatize Social Security.

Source: Sun-Sentinel editorial
, Oct 28, 2000

Opposes privatizing Social Security

I believe Florida’s next senator should see to it that we use the federal budget surplus to save Social Security. Florida’s senators have to take the lead in
protecting Social Security - not spending the surplus, not giving it away, not wasting it - but investing it to reduce the national debt and to make Social Security secure - for this generation, and the ones to come.

Source: www.nelsonforsenate.com, “On Social Security”
, Sep 20, 2000

Voted NO on establishing reserve funds & pre-funding for Social Security.

Voting YES would:

require that the Federal Old Age and Survivors Trust Fund be used only to finance retirement income of future beneficiaries;

ensure that there is no change to benefits for individuals born before January 1, 1951

provide participants with the benefits of savings and investment while permitting the pre-funding of at least some portion of future benefits; and

ensure that the funds made available to finance such legislation do not exceed the amounts estimated to be actuarially available.

Proponents recommend voting YES because:

Perhaps the worst example of wasteful spending is when we take the taxes people pay for Social Security and, instead of saving them, we spend them on other things. Even worse than spending Social Security on other things is we do not count it as debt when we talk about the deficit every year. So using the Social Security money is actually a way to hide even more wasteful spending without counting it as debt.
This Amendment would change that.

Opponents recommend voting NO because:

This amendment has a fatal flaw. It leaves the door open for private Social Security accounts by providing participants with the option of "pre-funding of at least some portion of future benefits."

This body has already closed the door on the President's ill-conceived plan for private Social Security accounts. The opposition to privatization is well-known:

Privatizing Social Security does nothing to extend the solvency of the program.

Transition costs would put our Nation in greater debt by as much as $4.9 trillion.

Creating private accounts would mean benefit cuts for retirees, by as much as 40%.

Half of all American workers today have no pension plan from their employers. It is critical that we protect this safety net.

Make no mistake about it, this is a stalking-horse for Social Security. It looks good on the surface, but this is an amendment to privatize Social Security.

Create Retirement Savings Accounts.

Nelson adopted the manifesto, "A New Agenda for the New Decade":

Balance America’s Commitments to the Young and the Old An ever-growing share of the federal budget today consists of automatic transfers from working Americans to retirees. Moreover, the costs of the big entitlements for the elderly -- Social Security and Medicare -- are growing at rates that will eventually bankrupt them and that could leave little to pay for everything else government does. We can’t just spend our way out of the problem; we must find a way to contain future costs. The federal government already spends seven times as much on the elderly as it does on children. To allow that ratio to grow even more imbalanced would be grossly unfair to today’s workers and future generations. In addition, Social Security and Medicare need to be modernized to reflect conditions not envisioned when they were created in the 1930s and the 1960s. Social Security,
for example, needs a stronger basic benefit to bolster its critical role in reducing poverty in old age. Medicare needs to offer retirees more choices and a modern benefit package that includes prescription drugs. Such changes, however, will only add to the cost of the programs unless they are accompanied by structural reforms that restrain their growth and limit their claim on the working families whose taxes support the programs.

Goals for 2010

Honor our commitment to seniors by ensuring the future solvency of Social Security and Medicare.

Make structural reforms in Social Security and Medicare that slow their future cost growth, modernize benefits (including a prescription drug benefit for Medicare), and give beneficiaries more choice and control over their retirement and health security.

Create Retirement Savings Accounts to enable low-income Americans to save for their own retirement.

The mission of the Alliance for Retired Americans is to ensure social and economic justice and full civil rights for all citizens so that they may enjoy lives of dignity, personal and family fulfillment and security. The Alliance believes that all older and retired persons have a responsibility to strive to create a society that incorporates these goals and rights and that retirement provides them with opportunities to pursue new and expanded activities with their unions, civic organizations and their communities.

The following ratings are based on the votes the organization considered most important; the numbers reflect the percentage of time the representative voted the organization's preferred position.

Scoring system for 2014: Ranges from 0% (supports privatization and other market-based reforms) to 100% (supports keeping federal control over Trust Fund and Social Security system).

About ARA (from their website, www.RetiredAmericans.org):

The Alliance for Retired Americans is a nationwide organization, founded in May 2001, with now over 4.2 million members working together to make their voices heard in the laws, policies, politics, and institutions that shape our lives. The mission of the Alliance for Retired Americans is to ensure social and economic justice and full civil rights for all citizens so that they may enjoy lives of dignity, personal and family fulfillment and security.

Alliance members visit the polls in record numbers. We use the power of our membership and our Congressional Voting Record to educate and mobilize seniors to elect leaders committed to improving the lives of retirees and older Americans.

We are effectively warding off cuts to our most important social programs like Social Security and Medicare. Our Human Chain Against the Chained CPI events in the summer of 2013 took place in more than 50 cities and mobilized support for stopping this cut to earned Social Security benefits.

We blocked the privatization of Social Security with our Social Security "Truth Truck" delivering 2.1 million petitions to Members of Congress and other tactics.

The Alliance makes its voice heard on the issues that matter not just to current retirees, but to all Americans who hope to retire one day. We were a leading voice in recent debates considering changes to Medicare, like replacing guaranteed benefits with a voucher system, and remain so in 2014.